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Body found near Winder; police investigating as homicide

Posted: Monday, November 17, 2008

By Merritt Melancon

WINDER — Investigators this morning began the painstaking task of gathering evidence from a badly decomposed body that hikers found behind a house on Atlanta Highway east of the Northeast Georgia Regional Airport.

The hikers discovered the body at about 5 p.m. Sunday — near dusk — behind a house at 998 Atlanta Highway between the airport and the city of Statham, deputies said.

The body is badly decomposed, but there is evidence of foul play at the scene and deputies are investigating the death as a homicide, said sheriff’s department Chief Deputy Murray Kogod.

Officers with the Barrow County Sheriff’s Department and the Georgia Bureau of Investigation were on the scene late this morning.

Investigators plan to take the body to the GBI Crime Lab in Decatur for an autopsy, Kogod said.